Bakin' Bread

As this past new years eve drew nearer the thought of resolutions struck me as clique yet appropriate. One of my resolutions was to find a hobby I enjoy. Running was once my hobby that I could not get enough of but as time went on it just didn't give me that same enjoyment it once did. Having fallen into this rather boring zone of having no particular favorite past-time a new resolution was added to the list.

This summer, with a bit more time on my hands, I am determined to try almost anything to find out what I enjoy but have never tried. I have plans to sign up for a pottery class in hopes of making some oversized mugs to try and fulfill my roommates and my oversized love for large quantities of tea. I am still in the works of trying to convince my parents to let me turn part of our back yard into a vegetable garden but in the mean time I have taken up baking.

Baking cookies and the like is enjoyable but what has really sparked my interest is bread. Yup, just good ol bread. Everybody eats it, and its something that is easy enough to make at home.

One of the things I like most about baking bread is having an excuse to call up my Omas (my grandmas), both of them whom have baked an uncountable number of loaves of bread, have lots of words of wisdom when I call with questions. Calling and talking about baking bridges the fifty-something year age gap between us. When I call it feels more like Im calling up a friend for some helpful advise then I am calling up my Grandma to do simply what a good granddaughter should do.

today: bread, brunch, movie

A few different paragraphs for a few different thoughts

Today I feel great. I woke up and at last was met by a shining sun after a long stretch of cloudy, overcast mornings. On a day like this you want to roll out of bed to meet the sun, to find where the world has left space between the shadows to allow the sun’s delicate rays to beam upon and slowly warm and bring to life.

I love spring it gives a chance for new growth, and for life to spring up from its roots. I agree all of this sounds undeniably cliché but Spring is my favourite time of year and after my year in Germany, a year spent mainly with farmers, you learn to look as Spring in a different light. Spring is a gamble, where do you plant what and how much of it? Will the Spring nurture and coddle your plants or will the rain drown your seeds or even wash them away. Spring keeps you on the edge of your seat to see what summer will bring.

My dream garden which would take up the majority of my parent’s backyard and also the majority of my spare time, would be full or vegetables, fruits and herbs but within current standings I am more than willing to settle for a few potted tomato plants and some windowsill basil. Hopefully they grow well. And coupled with my new skill in-the-works of bread baking, I will be able to trade with our neighbors other veggies and home-grown goodness. If you have ever seen the show “The edible garden” you will understand what has inspired a large majority of my passion for home grown love! (Although I had no luck with getting chickens this summer, this will not be my last attempts at homegrown eggs!)

After a delicious breakfast of summer berries and yogurt I went to yoga. This week my mind has been running about a million miles a minute for no reason in particular. I found I couldn’t really focus at yoga and although it did feel great to stretch and move, I feel like the hour I spent just wasn’t enough time to let my mind drain of its running thoughts. I came home and ditched the idea of running errands and instead decided to spend the day in the kitchen baking bread and on the back-porch reading. It was a splendid day but alas I feel as though my mind is still on a treadmill of thought. Coming home from Uni was much different than expected. I’m not sure what it is with my need to know what’s coming next. I am a planner, I outline, I prepare, I try and know what’s to come.. to have some kind of expectation, but after 20 years of life I am beginning to learn that you shouldn’t keep expectations. Everything is constantly changing and expectations should never be concrete. Situations are constantly being reshaped and revamped by changes going on in life so why should something so fluid be subject to concrete expectations? I suppose I answered my own question, with this.

I want strawberry season so I can hit up Springridge Farms and pick a dangerous amount of strawberries and make buckets of jam for the winter months. Mmmm! Nothing like homemade jam on a slice of homemade bread.

Today: yoga, laundry, read, steak and beer with dad!

Seeing the Glass Half Full

Last year when ever I was getting down on life and was second guessing my decision to go to Europe instead of University I would tell myself that I was learning so much and that it was totally worth it, however rarely did I feel like I was learning much at all (a part from German). I told myself that once I was home I would see how much I had really learned and when I did eventually arrive home I tried to convince myself that I did indeed feel like I had learned all these life lesson. I reality I still felt like a very lost, confused little girl, who had so much to learn.

I am pleased to say that lately I am reaping the rewards of last years struggle as a lot of the things I learned last year are coming into light only now. I feel very much grown up and that I am much more self reliant on directing my life in the direction I want it to lead. One huge thing that has taken me quite a long time to learn (and I am still working on) is how to look on the bright side of things. I feel like on the whole people tend to think I am a positive person because I am bubbly and outgoing but in reality my extroverted nature has little to do with how I view situations as they play out. I myself was even somewhat surprised when I stumbled upon the negativity brewing in my chest that I hadn't even notice was there.
I noticed this little nugget whenever I told people about my trip of Europe (once I was back in Canada). I felt like as I was trying to convince the other person of the great year I had as much as I was trying to convince myself. I know it sounds odd, who doesn't love a good European adventure, but all I could see when I looked back on my trip was all the things I should/could/would have done differently. I didn't come back with crazy stories about people I had met who had taught me the meaning of life or taught me who I am deep down inside. All I could think of, when I retold stories from my year, was how I often felt like I had no clue what I was doing but more over that I thought I was doing it wrong. The movies and other peoples Europe stories made it seem like you would always find your way and that fun things would just fall in your lap but I often second guessed what I chose to do and I found much of the process of traveling rather stressful. However I knew I had been blessed with a great opportunity to see the world and I wanted to be able to look back and have fond memories and this got me thinking about the heart of the issue. Why was it that I was so negative? Many reasons have crossed through my mind and no single one fully answers the question. I have figure out though, that despite everything that I should/could/would have done, I still got to see the world and I still made so great memories and it the act of focusing on those and not the bad memories that I can slowly reshape my mindset of traveling in Europe. This is one skill that I have transferred, in a big way to my life right now. Its about focusing on what is going right when everything else is going down the drain. We all succumb to being negative every once and a while but on the whole I am trying to encourage myself into being a more positive person.
After being rather depressed after a year of introverted-ness and recluse one has to work particularly hard to get out of such a negative mindset. In my pursuit of happiness I liked starting off with the small stuff when trying to get myself back to normal. Little things that I had let become mondane I started to point out and I tried to appreciate them for something pretty great, even if they were small things like the weather or the perfect amount of milk and sugar in your coffee. On top of that I tried to let the little things that get me down to not bother me. If I missed my bus, I would try and take it for what it is, a missed bus, nothing more and nothing less and eventually you let the little things that would have got you down slide off your shoulder (I found letting the little negative things go harder but it had the bigger impact of my happiness factor).
Note: If anyone who happens to read this wants a kick start in the right direction the book "1000 awesome things" is a good place to start.

Now, I know for a fact I can not take all the credit for my current start of happiness and bliss. I have a wonderful family and being back in the same country as my sisters has brought us much closer and I have enjoyed hanging out with them very much this year! Also going to Uni and meeting the great people I have has had a HUGE impact on my level of "loving-life-ness". Being around other optimistic people is a wonderful push in the right direction and being able to share laughs and good memories with others is further encouragement in seeing the bright side of things.

It is still tricky trying to see the positive side all the time (especially with exams around the corner) but its a work-in-progress and I am still learning.

today: sleep in, breakfast with ry, writing it all down

Coming home to my "home"

Moving from Germany to Canada and making all the adjustments I had to, to settle back in was a mighty feat. The cultural differences, the overwhelming sensation of having the home and people I had longed for for 365 days right in front of me, and a million over small things that needed adjusting to over took some time to get used to. Mostly I didn't notice the struggle I felt but now that I feel so settled I recognize, in hindsight, the instability I felt when first arriving home.

"Home" as I so delicately call it is a rather fluid term in my vocabulary. Having moved "homes" 4 times over a year you realize that the terribly cheesy saying of "home is where the heart is" is more true than you ever realized. Currently my "home" is a very small University dormitory room, although I like to think of it as much bigger than that. Part of my home is the library where I spend more and more of my time. Adjusting to university style learning I spend a considerable amount of time studying for the variety of tests, midterms and exams I have. Part of my home is in Val's room. Val is my quasi roommate. We live in separate rooms attached by a washroom we share. As with the library, over the past 6 months at Laurier, I have spent more and more time in her room; although less studying gets done when we hang out versus when I' in the library! My home also consist of hanging out with Rylee, Josh and Jess, 3 other people living on my floor. Where we hang out is less consistent but most often consists of meals at the dining hall, study dates in the library, or hanging out in our dorm lounge. These three people have been a pleasure to get to know and I have the joy of living with Rylee (and Val) next year in a 3 bed room apartment while we study in Waterloo next year. Another part of my "home" is my parents house in Oakville. Although I am not there as often as I would like, it is always pleasant to go back and have a home cooked meal and have the long chats over dinner that I missed so much last year in Germany.

Although all of these things are what I currently consider home, in a few short months I will be heading back to Oakville where I will live for the summer months before moving into the previously mentioned apartment with Ry and Val. As my home continues to change I hope to hold true that where I put my heart a home will be created; no matter how brief a time I consider that place my home.